Taking Spinner's End
by LynstHolin
Summary: Eileen Prince Snape realizes that, for the sake of her son Severus, she must end her miserable marriage.


"Oh, Tobias, no." Eileen Prince pulled her pilly gray cardigan closer around her, as if it could shield her from what her husband was telling her. The small, windowless kitchen seemed even gloomier.

"Little ponce thinks he can talk to me like that? I don't care if he's the boss' son. I told him where he can get off." Tobias was unemployed again. The man was just constitutionally unable to hold his tongue, even when doing so would be in his best interest. He sat on a rickety chair and unlaced his work boots, working hard to focus his eyes. Of course, he hadn't come home straightaway after being sacked. He had to stop at a pub first and down a few shots. That was his way.

Eileen's thick brows drew together as she fretted. The water heater wanted fixing. The roof was leaking. The bathroom floor was rotten. Eileen had begged to move to a council flat so many times, but Tobias wanted to own his home, regardless of whether they could afford it or not. As far as Eileen was concerned, the only thing the grim pile of brick was good for was gobbling up money that they didn't have.

Sev needed new shoes; the pair he had were far too small and made him walk with a limp. It was summer, and he could go barefoot, but Eileen hated how it made him look even more like a street urchin out of a Dickens novel. Blast, this was a bad time for Tobias to lose his job. "You could get some assistance fro-"

A steel-toed boot sailed past Eileen's head. "I told you a hundred times before! I'm not taking no government handouts!"

"But Sev-"

"You're a bloody witch, why don't you conjure up some money?"

"It doesn't work that way!"

"What good is magic then, eh? I'm going to take a nap. Don't make any damned racket, Sev." He padded up stairs in his stocking feet. Eileen could hear the floor creaking beneath him as he walked to the bed, and a crash when he lost his balance.

Eileen looked over at her son. He never made a racket. The eight-year-old was far too somber and quiet for his age, and far too knowledgeable about things no child should have to worry about. His dark eyes were big and full of worry. "It will be all right, love. I'll start doing double-shifts at the factory again. Come here." She opened her arms, and her son climbed up into her lap, pressing his face against her meager bosom. It was easier when she didn't see his face, which was far too similar to the one she saw in the mirror. Her looks had brought her no joy in life. It seemed like the whole world thought that such a plain woman should be grateful to have any man at all, even an angry drunkard that couldn't hold a job.

"I don't want you to do double-shifts, Mother. I'll miss you," Sev said. What he didn't say was that he hated being left alone with his father. Tobias had no time for a weak, timid boy.

"Your father will find another job soon." A lie. After each sacking, it took longer for Tobias to find another position. One day, he wouldn't be able to get hired at all. "Now, I've got to get going. I can't be late for my shift." Eileen dropped a kiss on top of her son's messy black hair and gently shoved him off. She grabbed her lunch pail and was out the side door and down the alley, a hunched figure with a pair of her husband's dungarees cinched up around her narrow waist. She was on her way to work in the mill that turned the brick houses around her black.

...

It was midnight when her shift ended. She tiptoed into the house and carefully undressed, slipped a nightgown over her head, and got into Sev's bed. Her feet hung over the edge and it was so narrow that she had to sleep on her side, but if she got into bed with her husband there was a chance that he might wake up. Sev whimpered when she put her arms around him. "What's wrong?" she whispered.

"Nothing, nothing, nothing," he whispered back.

Eileen snapped the bedside lamp on. She gasped when she saw the black around Sev's left eye. She lifted his pajama top and found more bruises. Her vision went red.

Tobias has blackened her eyes a few times, but he'd never, ever touched Sev, no matter how much he complained about the boy. Eileen had taken a lot from her husband over the years, fearing being alone more than she feared him, but this-this-this would not stand. Not my boy. Reaching under the mattress, she pulled out an item that her husband didn't know she still had: her wand.

"You. Out. Now." Tobias blinked, squinting against the light that issued from Eileen's wand.

"What are you doing with that? I told you to get rid of it!"

"You laid hands on our son. I want you gone. Now."

"He woke me up with his playing, the brat. He should know better!"

"Severus does not play. Because of you, he's not a proper child at all. He's a tiny adult. Out."

"This is my house."

"My name is on the mortgage as well as yours. And I've paid far more money for it. Out."

Tobias yelped as he was hit with a shocking hex. "Let me get dressed first, you mad hag!"

"You're leaving with nothing but the pajamas you're wearing." She shocked him again.

Tobias scrambled out of the bed and headed for the stairs. "You'll be begging me to come back," he shouted. "No one else would have a woman as ugly as you! No one!" Eileen sent a bolt of blue down the stairwell, and Tobias screamed just before he escaped out the front door.

...

"This is his home, ma'am," the policeman said. "You have to let him back in."

"Do I?" Eileen looked at her husband, who was standing behind the policeman with a hang-dog look on his drink-bloated face.

"I, uh, I'm sorry, Leenie. It'll never happen again."

"Of course it won't, because you're not coming back!"

In an instant, Tobias went from penitent to vicious. "You stupid, ugly cow!" The policeman turned and looked at him in surprise.

"Officer, shall I show you the bruises he left on our son? Shall I show you what I've gotten from my solicitor?"

"You can't afford no solicitor!" Tobias snarled.

"I've sold nearly everything in the house to the junkman. It's almost enough. My solicitor is having documents drawn up right now that give me the house, for what it's worth. I don't really want the place, but I'm taking it from you to make up for all the things you've taken from me."

Tobias roared and lunged at Eileen, fist raised. The policeman grabbed Tobias' arm and twisted it behind his back. As Tobias yowled in pain, the policeman said to Eileen, "Sorry, Ma'am. It looks like you're in the right."

Eileen watched as the policeman dragged away years' worth of misery and disappointment. There was still that part of her that considered herself a failure as a woman, but it was increasingly drowned out by a feeling of lightness. She had been miserable for so long that she almost didn't recognize this new emotion that was creeping into her soul, tingeing her days. Not happiness, exactly, but close enough.

...

The week proper was a grind of sixteen-hour days and too little sleep, but the weekends belonged to Eileen and Sev alone. No Tobias to demand her attention constantly, to tear up the house in a rage just after Eileen had cleaned, to insist that she join him every time he watched football. Sev was still too quiet and serious, and it broke Eileen's heart that he had to take care of himself so much of the time, but they found ways to have fun together. Until the solicitor was paid off, there would be nothing even close to a luxury in their lives. But the library was free. Eileen had always loved books. Tobias would never let her read. She revelled in her new freedom by bringing home armloads of reading matter.

" 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife'," Sev read aloud. 'What does that mean?"

"it means that if a man has money, lots of women will want to marry him, whether he wants to be married or not."

"Father never had money, but you married him anyway."

"It happens."

"So I shall be married?"

"Most likely. Someday."

"To who?"

"I don't know. One day, you'll meet someone, and you'll just know she's the one that you want to be with."

They lay on a threadbare blanket in a park, perusing a hard-cover edition of 'Pride and Prejudice'. It was late summer, and Sev was wearing a pair of brown Oxford shoes from a church jumble sale. Sure, they weren't new, but they fit. The well-manicured lawn of the park was swarming with children; running, skipping, shoving, shouting children. They ignored Sev, but the boy watched them from the corners of his eyes. One girl in particular seemed to get most of his attention. She was a pretty girl, and well-taken care of. Her flower-print dress was clean and new, and her long, well-brushed ginger hair gleamed. A pretty girl who would doubtless grow up to be a pretty woman. A pretty woman who would want a handsome husband. For perhaps the two-hundredth time, Eileen felt regret that her son looked so much like her, with the same sallow skin and long nose.

"Just remember, Sev, there are things more important than beauty when you are seeking a girlfriend or a wife."

"i know," he replied dutifully, but he was looking at the pretty girl again.


End file.
